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Sustainability 14 13014 v3
Sustainability 14 13014 v3
Sustainability 14 13014 v3
Article
Impact Mechanism and Effect of Agricultural Land Transfer on
Agricultural Carbon Emissions in China: Evidence from
Mediating Effect Test and Panel Threshold Regression Model
Ying Tang * and Menghan Chen
Abstract: In order to identify the mechanism and effect of agricultural land transfer on agricultural
carbon emissions, a study was conducted by analyzing the panel data of 30 provincial-level adminis-
trative regions from 2005 to 2019. Both the intermediary effect model and panel threshold regression
model are applied to test the correlation between agricultural land transfer and agricultural carbon
emissions, which provides some clarity on the mechanism of agricultural land transfer affecting
agricultural carbon emissions and its future trends. The research results are as follows. Firstly, agricul-
tural land transfer has a positive effect on agricultural carbon emissions, and agricultural factor input
plays a mediating role between agricultural land transfer and agricultural carbon emissions. More
specifically, the input of agricultural chemical elements has a positive impact on agricultural carbon
emissions, while the input of agricultural machinery elements has a negative impact on agricultural
carbon emissions. Secondly, under the threshold constraint of the urbanization level, the relationship
between agricultural land transfer and agricultural carbon emissions is characterized by an inverted
Citation: Tang, Y.; Chen, M. Impact “U” shape, with a threshold value of 0.73. In view of these findings, more attention should be directed
Mechanism and Effect of Agricultural to addressing the negative impact of agricultural land transfer on the ecological environment. Further-
Land Transfer on Agricultural more, various targeted measures should be taken to reduce the ecological risk carried by agricultural
Carbon Emissions in China: Evidence land transfer, to increase the effort made on achieving the goals of agricultural carbon emission
from Mediating Effect Test and Panel reduction, and to promote the green and sustainable development of the agricultural industry.
Threshold Regression Model.
Sustainability 2022, 14, 13014. Keywords: land use; carbon emissions; intermediary effect model; panel threshold model
https://doi.org/10.3390/
su142013014
the carbon emissions arising from agricultural productions and other relevant activities.
At the same time, it is necessary to promote the eco-friendly development of agricultural
productions according to the national agricultural green development scheme as part of
the 14th five-year plan, which requires the reduction in agricultural carbon emissions.
Under this context, there have been many studies conducted by academics on agricultural
carbon emissions.
In this respect, the focus of discussion is placed on the factors that affect the scale of
carbon emissions. It can be calculated by using the IPCC coefficient method [5], Kaya Porter
identity (KPI) method [6], carbon footprint method [7] or others. Having an incremental
effect on carbon emission changes, economic scale is the main contributor to increasing
carbon emissions [8,9]. Specifically, carbon emissions can be significantly affected by the
increase in manufacturing output value and international trade output value in macroeco-
nomic indicators [10]. Furthermore, population size and energy structure are another two
important factors in the increase in carbon emissions [11]. The slight changes in the soil
carbon cycle may also have a significant impact on the concentration of carbon monoxide
in the atmosphere. However, the current technical capacity is insufficient to quantitatively
allocate carbon use [12]. The increase in carbon emissions has detrimental effects on the
terrestrial climate, as manifested mainly by temperature rise [13]. The utilization inten-
sity of fossil fuels such as coal should be restricted [14], and the carbon emissions from
economic activities should be reduced progressively through the popularization of clean
energy and technologies, such as solar cells, biomass, hydropower and thermoelectric con-
version [15,16]. Apart from that, the scale of carbon emissions should be limited in the form
of trading licenses [17]. In China, agricultural carbon emissions are usually characterized
by a three-stage change of “up—down—up”, and there is a difference between the west
and the east [18]. The areas with high total emissions concentrate in those provinces heavily
reliant on the agricultural industry [19]. The total carbon emissions are jointly affected
by the development of world economy and society and policy intensity [20]. There is an
inverted “U” relationship existing between agricultural carbon emissions and economic
growth [21], and a “U” relationship existing between environmental regulation and carbon
emission efficiency [22]. In addition, the LMDI model [23], Kaya identity [24], STIRPAT
model [25], geographical weighted regression model [26] and other methods can be used
to conduct quantitative analysis on the influencing factors in agricultural carbon emissions.
The results show that agricultural carbon emissions can be significantly reduced by agricul-
tural production efficiency, agricultural structure, agricultural population size, agricultural
technology progress and other factors [27,28].
As a market-oriented means to improve the efficiency of rural land resource allocation,
rural land transfer relates to society, economy, ecology and more. However, at present, the
academic research of agricultural land transfer focuses mainly on its social and economic
effects [29–31], and there is little research on the ecological effects of agricultural land
transfer. At the same time, to meet the “double carbon” goal and to promote agricultural
green development, more attention should be paid to exploring how agricultural land
transfer affects agricultural carbon emissions. With the development of agricultural land
transfer market and the increase in agricultural land transfer, agricultural land circulation
has made significant impact on agricultural ecology [32]. Therefore, it is of much practical
significance to analyze how to reduce the ecological risk posed by agricultural land circula-
tion while promoting the moderate-scale practice of agricultural land circulation. Based
on the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2005 to 2019, an intermediary effect model
and a threshold model are constructed in this study based on theoretical analysis, so as to
test the impact path and mechanism of agricultural land transfer on agricultural carbon
emissions. Furthermore, the hypothesis is verified, which provides a theoretical reference
for effectively promoting agricultural land transfer and reducing agricultural emissions.
The contributions of this study are as follows. Firstly, an intermediary effect model
is adopted to test the impact mechanism of agricultural land transfer on agricultural
carbon emission in China. Secondly, an analysis is conducted as to the constraints on the
Sustainability 2022, 14, 13014 3 of 15
relationship between agricultural land transfer and agricultural carbon emissions. Lastly,
policy implications are indicated based on the empirical results for the better coordination
between agricultural land transfer and agricultural carbon emission.
the management scale of agricultural land for each entity, which moves the labor force
from agricultural production to non-agricultural activities [40]. Therefore, agricultural
production has the typical characteristics of concurrent operation. For these farmers, the
loss of labor makes it easier to invest more agricultural chemicals for maximum profits. In
addition, the stability and duration of agricultural land property rights will have a more
significant impact on the investment behavior of farmers, according to the property rights
theory. Due to the unstable and short-term agricultural real estate rights, farmers tend to
show shortsightedness in their investments. That is to say, farmers, as “economic people”,
will reject the long-term investment in agricultural land, such as building irrigation and
drainage facilities, improving soil quality, etc. Instead, they choose to invest a large amount
of agricultural chemicals and make other short-term investments for quick profits [41]. By
improving agricultural land circulation policies, the stability of agricultural land property
rights can be enhanced, which will motivate farmers to abandon short-term investment for
long-term investment [42,43].
ln TCit = β0 +α ln TCit +β1 ln Fit × I(urbanit ≤ η) + β2 ln Fit × I(urbanit > η) + controlit +εit (5)
where urban represents a threshold dependent variable; η indicates the threshold
value; I denotes the indicator function. In two scenarios, one being that the urbaniza-
tion level falls below the threshold value (urbanit ≤ η) and the other being that the
urbanization level exceeds the threshold value (urbanit > η), the impact of agricultural
land transfer on agricultural carbon emissions is β1 and β2 , respectively. The thresh-
old model can simultaneously estimate the threshold value of the urbanization level
and the slope value. The significance of the threshold effect was tested, that is, the
original hypothesis H0 ; β1 = β2 . If the original hypothesis is rejected, the alternative
hypothesis is accepted, that is, under different urbanization levels, the impact of
agricultural land transfer on agricultural carbon emissions varies significantly.
organizations by the farmers with land contract management rights in rural areas.
According to the existing research results, agricultural land transfer is mostly replaced
by cultivated land transfer indicators [58]. Therefore, the transfer area of household
contracted farmland in each province is used to represent the transfer of agricultural
land in each province as the explanatory variable of this study.
(2) Explained variable: the explained variable used in this study is agricultural carbon
emissions, with the narrow sense of agricultural (planting) carbon emissions as the
research object. It is defined as the carbon emissions generated during the use of
agricultural land, mainly including the carbon emissions generated during the use of
chemical fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural films and agricultural diesel, as well as the
carbon emissions generated during the irrigation and tillage of agricultural land [59].
The carbon emission accounting formula is expressed as:
n n
TC = ∑i=1 Oi = ∑i=1 qi × ρi (6)
where TC represents the total agricultural carbon emission, Oi indicates the car-
bon emission of each carbon emission form, qi denotes the quantity of each carbon
emission form, and ρi refers to the carbon emission coefficient of each form of car-
bon emissions. The coefficient values of this study are detailed in the research of
Ding (2019).
(3) Intermediate variable: agricultural materials input. The input of agricultural ma-
terials includes the input of agricultural chemical material and that of agricultural
machinery. Among them, the input of agricultural chemical elements includes various
agricultural chemicals, such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural films,
all of which are inputted by the agricultural production entities in the process of crop
production. Considering the difficulty in measuring the total input of agricultural
chemical material, it can be found out that chemical fertilizer is one of the most impor-
tant input factors in agricultural production in China, which plays a significant role in
promoting grain production [60]. In the meantime, it also contributes significantly to
the total agricultural carbon emissions. Therefore, the ratio of fertilizer application
to crop planting area in each province is adopted to represent the input of agricul-
tural chemical elements. Referred to as the agricultural machinery and equipment
invested by farmers and other production entities in the process of crop production,
agricultural machinery input can be used to indicate the level of mechanization in the
process of agricultural production. In the existing research results, the total power
of agricultural machinery is mostly used to represent the input of agricultural ma-
chinery. However, this index is not applicable to accurately indicate the input level
of agricultural machinery. This is due to the difficulty in collecting the data on the
total power of agricultural machinery at the level of farmers and the fact that the cross
regional service of agricultural machinery and the socialized service of agricultural
machinery are common in China. Therefore, the total power of regional agricultural
machinery is unfit to fully reflect the input of agricultural machinery. Therefore, the
comprehensive agricultural machine utilization rate of crop cultivation and harvest
as used by the Ministry of Agriculture is adopted in this study to measure the level
of agricultural mechanization. This index is the weighted average value of machine
cultivation rate, machine sowing rate and machine yield.
(4) Other variables: considering that agricultural carbon emissions may be affected by
other factors, other control variables are also introduced into this study, including:
1 Agricultural fiscal level: Agricultural finance refers to the government’s expendi-
ture on agricultural production activities. The higher the level of expenditure, the
more conducive it will be to improving agricultural technology. Furthermore, it has
a significant impact on agricultural carbon emissions. In the existing studies, the
proportion of fiscal expenditure spent on supporting agriculture to the total agricul-
tural production value is often used to indicate the agricultural financial level. Since
the definition of agricultural carbon emissions in this study is specific to planting
Sustainability 2022, 14, 13014 7 of 15
carbon emissions, the ration of the total output value of the planting industry to fiscal
expenditure on supporting agriculture is used in this study to indicate the agricultural
financial level of each province. 2 Agricultural land resource endowment: Due to
the differences in the amount of agricultural land resources in various regions, there
are variations in the status and scale of agricultural production between different
regions. Consequently, there are significant differences in agricultural carbon emis-
sions between various regions. Therefore, the per capita cultivated land area of the
planting industry in each province is used in this study to indicate the endowment
of agricultural land resources in each province. 3 Agricultural population scale:
The scale of agricultural population tends to have immediate effects on the regional
structure and scale of agricultural production, thus affecting the amount of regional
agricultural carbon emissions. Therefore, the number of employees in the planting
industry in each province is used in this study to indicate the size of agricultural
population. 4 Structure of agricultural output value: It is expressed as the ratio of
the output value of planting industry to the total output value of agriculture, forestry,
animal husbandry and fishery. 5 Agricultural planting structure: It is indicated by
the ratio of the sown area of grain crops to the total sown area of crops.
The provincial panel data from 2005 to 2019 are selected for use in this study. Due
to the serious lack of data in Tibet, it is excluded from the sample. Finally, 30 provincial
administrative regions in mainland China are selected as the research objects. The sample
data are sourced from the “China Statistical Yearbook”, “China Rural Statistical Yearbook”,
“China rural operation and management statistical annual report”, and “China Agricultural
Machinery Industry Yearbook” of the corresponding years. In order to eliminate the impact
of variable dimensions and ensure the stability of the data, logarithmic processing is carried
out for agricultural land transfer, agricultural carbon emission and agricultural chemical
element input. Table 1 lists the descriptive statistics of variables.
(2) Intermediary effect test: SPSS 25.0 software and process 4.0 macro program plug-in
are applied to conduct regression analysis on the sample data. The results are detailed
as follows which are showed in Table 3. In regression equation 1, the impact coefficient
of agricultural land transfer on agricultural carbon emissions is 0.29, which passes the
test at a significance level of 1%. That is to say, agricultural land transfer has a signifi-
cant positive impact on agricultural carbon emissions. In the regression equation 2,
the influence coefficient of agricultural land transfer on agricultural chemical element
input is 0.03, which passes the test at the 5% significance level as well. That is to say,
agricultural land transfer has a significant positive impact on agricultural chemical
element input. In regression equation 3, the influence coefficient of agricultural land
transfer on agricultural machinery factor input is 0.063, which also passes the test at
the 1% significance level. That is to say, agricultural land transfer also has a significant
positive impact on agricultural machinery factor input. In regression equation 4,
the influence coefficient of agricultural land transfer, agricultural chemical element
input and agricultural machinery element input on agricultural carbon emissions is
0.30, 0.79 and −0.49, respectively, all of which pass the test at the 1% significance
level. That is to say, both agricultural land transfer and agricultural chemical element
input have a significant positive impact on agricultural carbon emissions. By contrast,
agricultural machinery element input has a significant negative impact on agricultural
carbon emissions.
Table 3. Intermediary effect test results of agricultural land transfer on agricultural carbon emissions.
Regression Equation (1) Regression Equation (2) Regression Equation (3) Regression Equation (4)
Variables lnTC lnap Am lnTC
β t β t β t β t
15.24 *** 2.17 ** 0.06 0.30
lnF 0.29 (0.020) 0.03 (0.01) 8.60 *** 17.08 ***
(0.01) (0.02)
0.79
lnap 13.50 ***
(0.06)
am −0.49 (0.11) −4.30 ***
−0.70 −0.02 −0.05 −0.66
fsa −16.681 *** −0.78 −3.21 *** −18.25 ***
(0.04) (0.03) (0.02) (0.04)
0.15 −0.17 0.11 0.34
area 3.880 *** −5.91 *** 7.62 *** 8.99 ***
(0.04) (0.03) (0.02) (0.04)
15.655 *** −0.01 −0.01 0.14
popu 0.13 (0.01) −1.96 ** −3.01 *** 19.07 ***
(0.01) (0.00) (0.01)
−0.66 −0.84 0.27 −0.13
pvs −2.550 ** −4.37 *** 2.67 *** 0.58
(0.26) (0.19) (0.10) (0.23)
−0.53 −0.16 0.28 −0.27
ps −2.590 *** −1.04 3.56 *** −1.53
(0.21) (0.15) (0.08) (0.18)
R 0.90 0.40 0.69 0.93
R2 0.81 0.16 0.48 0.86
F 308.59 *** 13.96 *** 67.63 *** 349.05 ***
Note: **, and *** are significant at the level of 5%, and 1%, respectively, and Se values are in brackets.
From the above results, it can be concluded that agricultural land transfer exerts a
partial intermediary effect on agricultural carbon emissions by affecting agricultural ma-
terial input. Therefore, the first part of the research hypothesis proposed in this study is
supported. Moreover, agricultural chemical factor input exerts a positive effect on agri-
Sustainability 2022, 14, 13014 9 of 15
cultural carbon emissions, while agricultural machinery factor input has a negative effect
on agricultural carbon emissions. Therefore, the second part of the research hypothesis
proposed in this study is also supported. In terms of control variables, the impact of
agricultural land resource endowment and agricultural population size on agricultural
carbon emissions passes the test at the significance level of 1%. Furthermore, the impact
coefficient is positive, indicating the promoting effect of agricultural land resource endow-
ment and agricultural population size on agricultural carbon emissions. As for the impact
of agricultural financial level on agricultural carbon emissions, it also passes the test at the
significance level of 1%. Furthermore, the impact coefficient is negative, which indicates
that to a certain extent the target of agricultural carbon emission reduction can be achieved
if the local government increases its support for agriculture and promotes the progress in
agricultural production technology.
In order to further verify the robustness of the intermediary effect, bootstrap is used to
repeatedly extract the sample data for 5000 times and the default 95% unbiased correction
interval is used to test the intermediary effect. The results are shown in Table 4. The confi-
dence interval is [0.25, 0.33] and [0.26, 0.33] for the total effect and direct effect, respectively.
The confidence interval is [0.01, 0.05] for the intermediary path of “agricultural land transfer
→ agricultural chemical element input → agricultural carbon emission”. The confidence
interval is [−0.05, −0.01] for the intermediate path of “agricultural land transfer → input of
agricultural machinery factors → agricultural carbon emissions”. The confidence interval
does not contain 0, which confirms the significance effect propagation paths.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, Y.T.; methodology and software, M.C. All authors have
read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This study was funded by the Social Science Foundation of China (21BGL288).
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Sustainability 2022, 14, 13014 13 of 15
Data Availability Statement: The sample data are sourced from the corresponding years of “China
Statistical Yearbook”, “China Rural Statistical Yearbook”, “China rural operation and management
statistical annual report”, and “China Agricultural Machinery Industry Yearbook”.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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